Could inflation, like sunburn and bee stings, be on the agenda for the summer of 2014?

At first blush, it appears unlikely. Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve seems far more concerned with deflation than inflation, and the bond market appears to back that up, as interest rates have fallen notably in recent weeks.

But behind the scenes, the actual price pressures are evident to anyone who drives a car or lights the grill for a barbecue this weekend. It’s not something that bodes well for an economy that contracted in the first quarter of this year.

Let’s start with gas prices. Although they are several cents below the levels of this time last year, at a national average of about $3.80 a gallon, or about half the hourly minimum wage,they’re no bargain.

Another form of sticker shock is coming at the checkout counter in advance of millions of Memorial Day barbecues.

With droughts in California, Texas and Oklahoma worsening over the last weeks, the Department of Agriculture is warning of significant price increases. Overall food prices are expected to increase at a 3.5 percent rate, beef prices at almost 7 percent over a year ago. Those are 1970s-style increases.

One voice of reason is Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, who warned last week that all the money-printing of the last five years has the Fed sitting on a ticking time bomb.

Noting that all the Ben Bernanke-inspired money has led to excess reserves in the banking system, Plosser told Reuters, “One thing I worry about is that we are late [in figuring out a way to remove the reserves]. . . . The consequences might be more dramatic than in previous times.”

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the most powerful regional Fed president to make it clear that Plosser is a lone hawk. Bill Dudley — Goldman Sachs alum,Timothy Geithner’s replacement atop the New York Fed and head of its interest rate-setting committee — assured Wall Street last week that there would be a significant amount of time before the central bank raises its rock-bottom rates, clearly closing the door on any inflation-fighting rescue.